William Timmons

GREENVILLE – Four-term U.S. Rep. William Timmons will have an opportunity to win what he promises would be his final term after beating back a pair of challengers in the Republican primary for the Upstate’s District 4 congressional seat, according to a projection by The Associated Press.

In announcing his run this year and leaning heavily into President Donald Trump’s endorsement, Timmons said he was ready to return home in two years and wouldn’t seek another term if reelected.

Timmons beat back Republican challengers David Atchley and Robert E. Lee. The Associated Press called the race about 90 minutes after polls closed.

Timmons will now face Democrat Courtney McClain, who had no primary challenge, and Libertarian Jessica Ethridge, who is already on the November general election ballot.

District 4, which encompasses highly populated Greenville and Spartanburg counties, is one of the most conservative in the U.S., with Republicans holding the seat since 1993 and winning by gaping margins during that time.

The victory comes two years after Timmons eked out a primary win against former state Rep. Adam Morgan that saw the incumbent, on the heels of a widely publicized affair scandal, lose his hometown Greenville County but pull through in Spartanburg County.

Timmons branded himself as a representative who would walk in lockstep with the president’s agenda, and he coasted on the winds of Trump’s early endorsement.

Atchley, 60, started a Greenville-based fundraising and strategy consulting firm after working in the higher education arena and raising more than $700 million for education, business and community growth initiatives. He ran on a promise to focus on issues more local to the district, criticizing Timmons as being an absentee representative. Atchley, who once worked for the late U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond, said he promised the senator he would one day run for office.

Lee, an engineer, ran on an “America First” platform that roundly criticized what he said was a lack of transparency in the release of the Epstein files and American intervention in foreign wars, positions that put him at odds with Trump.